Marta. Eliza Orzeszkowa
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I will go with you to the new apartment,” the girl exclaimed. “I will call a cab.”
A quarter of an hour later the two women and the child got out of the cab in front of a building on Piwna Street. The four-story tenement was narrow in front, but tall. It looked old and sad. Little Jasia stared at its walls and windows with wide eyes.
“Mama, will we live here?”
“Here, my child,” the woman in mourning replied in a voice that was always quiet. She turned to the concierge who was standing in the gateway.
“Please give me the key to the apartment that I rented two days ago.”
“Ah! In the attic, surely,” the concierge replied. “Please follow me upstairs, madame. I will open it right away.”
The small, square courtyard was surrounded by a blind wall of brick red on two sides and, on the other two, by old woodsheds and granaries. The women and the child went into the building and started up the narrow, dark, dirty stairs. The younger woman took the child in her arms and went ahead; the woman in mourning followed her.
The room whose door the concierge opened was quite large, but low and dark, and poorly lit by one small window that opened onto the roof. The walls, which smelled of dampness from a fresh covering of whitewash, seemed to contract under the slanted ceiling.
In the corner next to the simple brick cooking stove was a small hearth. Across the room a wardrobe of modest size stood in front of one wall. There was a bed without a frame, a couch covered with torn calico, and a table painted black. There were several yellow chairs with sagging rush seats that were partly ripped away.
The woman in mourning stopped for a moment on the threshold, surveyed the room with a long, slow glance, then took a few steps forward and sank down on the couch. The child stood still and pale next to her mother and gazed around with surprise and fear in her eyes.
The younger woman dismissed the driver, who had brought two small leather bags from the carriage. She bustled about, taking things out of the bags and arranging them. There were not many things, and it took only a short time to put them in order. Without taking off her coat and hat, she put a few very small dresses and some underclothing in one of the bags, then moved the other one, which was empty, to the corner of the room. She made the bed with two pillows and a woolen coverlet and hung a white curtain in the window. She put several plates and cups, a clay water pitcher and a large bowl, a brass candle-holder and a small samovar into a cupboard. Then she took a bundle of wood from behind the stove and made a cheerful fire in the fireplace.
“Ah, yes,” she said, rising from her knees and turning her face, which was rosy from blowing on the fire, to the motionless woman. “I have made the fire and you will soon have warmth and light in here. Behind the stove you will find enough wood for about two weeks. The dresses and underclothes are in the bag. The kitchen crockery and dining dishes are in the cupboard, and a candle in a holder is there as well.”
The honest servant forced herself to speak cheerfully, but the smile was vanishing from her lips and her eyes were filling with tears.
“And now”—she said more quietly, folding her hands—“and now, my dear lady, I must go!”
The woman in mourning lifted her head.
“You must go, Zofia,” she repeated. “Indeed you must.” Glancing through the window, she added, “It is growing dark. You will be afraid to walk through the city at night.”
“Oh, no, my dear lady!” the girl exclaimed. “I would walk to the end of the world in the darkest night for you. But my new employers leave Warsaw very early in the morning, and they have ordered me to return before nightfall. I have to go because they will need me this evening.”
With those words the young servant bent down, took the woman’s pale hand and would have raised it to her lips. But the woman suddenly rose and threw both her arms around the girl’s neck. They wept. The child also burst into tears and seized the servant’s linen coat.
“Do not go, Zofia!” she wailed. “Do not go! It is so horrible here! It is so dreary!”
The girl kissed her former employer’s hands and pressed the child to her bosom.
“I must go. I must!” she repeated, sobbing. “My mother is poor and I have little sisters. I have to work for them . . .”
The woman in mourning raised her white face and held her thin figure erect.
“Zofia, I will also work,” she said in a more assured voice than before. “I have a child and I should work for her.”
“May God not abandon you, and may He bless you, my dear, kind lady!” the servant girl cried, once again kissing the hands of the mother and the tearful face of the child. She ran out of the room without looking back.
After the girl’s departure, a deep silence filled the room. It was interrupted only by the crackling of the fire and the dull, indistinct street noise that reached the attic. The woman in mourning sat on the couch. The child cried at first, then nestled quietly on the mother’s bosom and fell asleep. The woman rested her head on her hand; her arm embraced the tiny figure sleeping on her knees and her eyes stared unswervingly at the flickering firelight.
Now that her faithful, devoted servant was gone, she would not see again the face of the last human being who had been a witness to her past—the last support that had remained for her after the disappearance of everything that had helped and sustained her. Now she was alone, subject to the power of fate and the hardships of a lonely destiny, dependent on the strength of her own hands and brain. Her only companion was this small, weak being who found rest on no bosom but hers, demanded kisses from her lips, and expected nourishment from her hand. Her house, which her loving husband had once provided for her and which she had now been forced to abandon, was welcoming new residents within its walls. The kind, beloved man who had surrounded her with love and prosperity was resting in his grave.
Everything had passed: love, prosperity, peace, the joy of life. The only traces of this unhappy woman’s past, now vanishing like a dream, were her painful memories and this pale, thin child who now opened her eyes after a short sleep, threw her arms around the woman’s neck and, touching her face with her little lips, whispered:
“Mama! Give me something to eat!”
Her request did not yet arouse fear or sadness in the mother’s heart. The widow reached into her pocket and took out a purse containing several banknotes—the only fortune left to her and her daughter. She threw a shawl around her shoulders, told the child to wait calmly for her return, and left the room.
Halfway down the stairs she met the concierge, who was carrying a bundle of wood to one of the apartments on the second floor.
“Dear sir,” the widow said politely and timidly, “could you bring some milk and rolls for my child from a nearby shop?”
The concierge listened without stopping, then turned his head and replied with barely concealed unwillingness:
“And who has the time now to go for milk and rolls? It’s not my job here to bring food to the tenants.”
He vanished behind the curve of the wall. The widow made her way down the stairs.
“He did not want to help me,” she thought, “because he thinks I am poor. He was carrying a heavy load of wood to those he expected to pay him for it.”
She went to the courtyard and glanced around.
“And why is madame looking around?” someone said in a hoarse, unpleasant voice very near her.
The widow saw a woman standing before a low door near the gate. She could not recognize her in the darkness. A short skirt, a large linen cap, and a thick scarf thrown askew on her back, together with the sound of her voice and the tone of her speech, showed that she was a woman from the countryside. The widow guessed that she was the concierge’s wife.
“My good lady,” she said, “will I